Frequently Asked Questions

There is a button (towards the right) in the menu at the top of every page that says ‘log in’. Clicking this will allow you to log-in to Taproot Video. You have the option of logging-in using your Google+, Facebook, or Amazon account. Alternatively you can create an account to authenticate with Taproot Video.

The Amazon Log-in functionality stores some information in browser 'cookies' and this issue can occur when the information in the cookie is stale.

Try this: Go to Amazon.com and log out of Amazon. This will clear the stale information. Then return to Taproot Video, and log in again. You should see a dialog prompting you to log into your Amazon account. So far this work-around has been the magic ticket for all the folks who had this challenge.

We are developing a video home school plan, filming new classes even now, and hope to have a 9 month art curriculum available soon. Until then, may we suggest Marilyn’s book, Creative Crafts of the World – 15 lesson plans for teaching Folk Art which is available now at www.taprootfolkarts.com/ccwbook

Your complete satisfaction is guaranteed. If you are not pleased with your DVD for any reason, return the item within 90 days for an exchange, credit or refund. If the item is damaged, please notify customer service. Notification of any issues must occur within 10 calendar days of the original purchase.
We do not accept returns for downloaded material. However, if you are experiencing technical difficulties, please contact customer service.

Taproot Video does not store your credit card information. If you pay with Amazon, you can update your payment information on the Amazon web site. Go to 'Your Account' on the Amazon web site and click on 'Manage Payment Options' or 'Add a Credit or Debit Card'.
If on the other hand, you pay Taproot Video directly, using a credit- or debit card you will have to enter the card number for each purchase, because Taproot Video does not store (or even receive) credit card numbers.

If you use a Taproot Video account you should try to log in normally (using the 'Login with Taproot' button). The dialog prompting you for you e-mail address and password does have a link 'Forgot password?' under the password field that you can use to reset your password. Instructions for resetting your password will be e-mailed to you after you entered the e-mail address of your account.
If you use a third party account (Google+, Facebook or Amazon) to log into Taproot Video, you will need to follow their instructions to reset the password at their own sites,

If you use a Taproot Video account to authenticate, you can use the reset password page to change your password.
If you use a third party account, please follow the directions from Google, Facebook, or Amazon for how to change your password. Taproot Video does not store your password for these accounts.

Once you are logged in, and you are on a class’s page, scroll down below the video window, and 4 tabs will be seen below the star rating for the class. One of these is labeled ‘Discuss’. Here you can leave comments, questions, etc. Only other students who have purchased the class will be able to see this section.

Not if you don't want to. You can choose an arbitrary nick name when you sign up with Taproot Video. All reviews and comments will be attributed to this nick name, not your real name.

Wow, good eye! It would help us ever so much if you could contact us with an email at customer service

Searches always return a list of classes that match your search term(s). It searches in the names of instructors, the titles of the classes, the biographies of the instructors, the descriptions of the classes, and the materials listed by each class to determine which classes you may be searching for. However, it does not weigh each of these equally, paying more attention to instructor names and class titles than materials, for example. You can change this in the search settings. Searches are always case insensitive; it does not matter whether you use upper- or lower case letters in your search terms.

There are two techniques to get fewer and more specific search results: the search settings and using 'search phrases'. You can access the search settings by clicking on the settings button ui-button on the search results page. You probably know in which category you would expect your search term to occur. Give that category high relevance and give low relevance to all other categories (or uncheck them to completely ignore those). You can also uncheck 'Support approximate matches' if you are certain of the spelling of your search term.
You can also use search phrases: everything included in quotation marks is considered a search phrase. The terms in a search phrase must occur in the order you specify and without any other words in between them in order for a phrase to be matched. For example, when you use the phrase "tablet weaving", it will find a class that talks about 'tablet weaving' in its description, but it would not find it if the description talks about 'weaving with tablets' or '... use a tablet. While weaving...'. Searching for tablet weaving without quotes would include the classes in the results in all three cases.

Please check the search settings (click on the search settings button ui-button on the search result page) and make sure all checkboxes are checked. Taproot Video remembers the settings from you previous search. You should also make sure that the relevance for the category of information you're searching for is set to high (and set to low for all other categories). When search fails you, you can always fall back on human intelligence and contact Taproot Video support. We are there to help.

Taproot Video supports wildcard searches like many search engines such as Google, Bing, etc, but in a somewhat limited form. You can use the wildcard characters '*' and '?' to represent a part of the search term that you don't know. '?' represents a single unknown character and '*' represents a sequence of unknown characters. So, when you search for 'f?rm', the search will return classes that mention either 'form' or 'firm' or 'farm' in the title, description etc. Similarly, when you search for 'ta*', the search will return classes that mention either 'tablet' or 'task' or 'tail'.

There is no limit to the number of classes you can purchase.

Relax. You are not charged twice. This happens only when you use Amazon to pay for your class(es) and is a peculiarity of the Amazon system. Amazon will send you a first email as soon as you have initiated a payment; this is not a payment. Only once you actually have the class ‘in your hands’ does Amazon take the payment. The second email confirms the transaction has happened. It is important to note that, when a DVD is ordered, you will not be charged (nor get that second email) until the DVD is at the Post Office and on its way to you!

Yes, since the class will be available to you immediately.

No. A ‘hold’ for the purchase price will be placed on your credit card, but the card will actually be charged once the DVD is in the mail and on its way to you. In spite of this delay in charging, you will be able to watch the ‘included’ streaming functionality of that class right away.

Yes. We are able to ship DVDs to international addresses, but international customers can purchase streaming video directly from our site.

Taproot Video actually never receives your credit card information. All credit card processing is performed by Stripe or Amazon on behalf of Taproot Video. Your credit card information is always sent directly to the payment processor and never to Taproot Video. Additionally, we use industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption to protect all information submitted to Taproot Video.

The individual states tell us that we must tax shipping and processing charges. This is not a company policy but a state requirement.

The address is required to calculate if (and now much) tax we need to charge. The address is not stored in this case.

Taproot Video accepts payment via credit and debit cards (using Stripe as payment processor) and also through Amazon Payments. In both cases your payment information is only sent to the payment processor and never processed by the Taproot Video server.

Taproot Video is a cooperative of instructors and each instructor can choose how they would like to offer their classes.

View the preview for the class on the same device that you plan to use to watch the full class. You will be able to view the full class if you can access the preview.

Just click on the button that says ‘Purchased Classes’. This will take you directly to the page listing all the classes you have purchased, if you are already logged in. Otherwise it will prompt you to first log in and then take you to that page.

This is cause by congestion in your internet connection. This often is a temporary situation and we recommend you stop the video, let it load a while, and start playing it again from the beginning. It should play smoothly now.

You are using Google Chrome. This is an issue specific to this browser. Please consider using another browser if this functionality is important to you. We are working on making this functionality available in Chrome in a future release.

Your classes should stream for you no matter where in the world you live. All credit card charges are automatically transacted in U.S. dollars.

Yes, our video site was built to work on all iPads and Android tablets. Layouts, scrolling or displays may vary depending on the device you have.

Taproot Video does not recommend accessing the site from a smartphone. We are planning to optimize the site for smartphone access in the future. Please email customer service if this support is important to you.

An Internet connection is required. We recommend that you have a good broadband or network connection for the optimal experience watching the videos.

Check to make sure you can view videos on Youtube with the same device and browser you are using to take these courses. We also recommend you visit our browser compatibility test page

Your dial-up connection should work, if you already can view other videos online. As they say; ‘your mileage may vary.’ It won’t be ideal in any case, we recommend you purchase the DVD and don’t rely exclusively on the streaming functionality at all.

The e-books on Taproot Video are distributed as PDF files and can be downloaded and opened on any computer with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Yes, individual pages or the entire PDF can be printed for your own personal use.

Links are provided within the chapters in the relevant PDF to each of the video files. The video files are stored in a public location which allows them to be viewed online or downloaded and viewed offline. A link is also provided to the entire folder of videos on the Taproot Video information page that you can view once you have completed your purchase.

For many classes the DVD is sold in combination with 30 days of streaming. You can watch these classes immediately after your purchase, no need to wait.

The DVDs we produce are not restricted by region, that is to say they will play in any region, no restriction due to that.
However, there are different standards for TVs in the world. In North America people use the NTSC standard TVs, in Europe they use the PAL standard, and there is a third standard called SECAM. See e.g. Wikipedia for more details. This applies to broadcast TV, but also has an impact on playing DVDs because a DVD supports only one of these standards. Taproot video produces NTSC DVDs.
These days many DVD players are capable of converting from one standard to another on the fly, and some TVs can accept multiple standards as inputs. A customer with equipment that can play NTSC DVDs will not have problems anywhere in the world, and this applies to almost all DVD players attached to computers. There should be no problem playing our DVDs on your computer.

DVDs take between 7-10 business days to ship to addresses in the continental USA and Canada. Customers in Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. Territories should expect delivery times of 3-5 weeks. Shipments to other countries may take up to 2 months, but arrive considerably faster at most destinations.

You will receive an email confirmation when we receive your order and, we ship DVDs within 1 or 2 business days of receiving the order.

We recommend you use the latest version of Firefox (on Windows and Linux computers) or Safari (on Macintosh computers). However, Taproot Video supports the three most recent releases of the major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer) on Windows, Linux and Macintosh.
Taproot Video support version 8 and later of iOS for viewing on iPads and version 4.4 and later of Android for viewing on Android tablets.

PC system requirements (Windows):

• Windows version 7, 8 or 10
• 2GB of RAM or more
• Color monitor with at least 800x600 screen resolution, 1024x768 recommended
• Windows sound card
• Speakers or headphones

Macintosh system requirements:

• MacOS version 10.8 or above
• 2GB of RAM or more
• Color monitor with at least 800x600 screen resolution, 1024x768 recommended
• Windows sound card
• Speakers or headphones

We are planning to officially add support for Linux systems in a future release but anticipate that Taproot Video can be enjoyed on most modern Linux distributions without difficulties.